


I'm No Good Tonight

by likearecord



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Disney, Giraffes, Introspection, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Canon, Rimming, Road Trips, Shower Sex, for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28984626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likearecord/pseuds/likearecord
Summary: Andrew is struggling the November after Drake and rehab. Fuck Thanksgiving. They're going on a road trip.Mixtape Exchange Song:Honest | Tessa VioletEntire Playlist:AFTG Mixtape 2021
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 49
Kudos: 380
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	I'm No Good Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PolzkaDotz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolzkaDotz/gifts).



> My dear recipient,  
> Your song was lovely. I've listened to it at least 100,000 times over the past couple of months. I hope that this lives up to your vision.
> 
> Mandi

_here's the truth, my strength ain't being honest  
I mostly work from wanting to be wanted  
and if there's something else, well, I don't know if I got it  
and come the night, I'm never really solid_  


Fall creeps up on South Carolina in chilly evenings and leaves that set themselves alight, burn out, and drift to the ground to be trampled. 

It’s a familiar cycle. They’d been too close to the fire, all of them, all the way through championships and death threats, kidnapping, torture, and murder. They’d burned even hotter after that, free for the summer from class, from games, from abusers, from sadistic fathers and the looming threat of death by mafia. The closer they get to autumn, though, the more like ash Andrew feels. 

Halloween sneaks up on him, coming and going in a blur of lights and alcohol and Neil dressed as Peter Pan, the muscles in his legs pronounced through the tights, the tunic barely long enough to cover his ass. It’s the dawn of November that stretches him too thin. A year ago, he’d been a different person. A year ago, his hold on Neil had been as fragile as a bubble blown through a wand, wobbling at the smallest shift in the air. A year ago, no one had known about Drake. The past had been in the past. A year ago, Aaron hadn’t killed a man. Kevin hadn’t found his spine. Andrew hadn’t lost Neil, felt the loss more intensely than he’d ever felt anything before, and gotten him back. 

A year ago, they were planning to go to the Hemmick’s for an awkward, ultimately useless family dinner. A year ago, a year ago, a year ago. Every day is doubled for Andrew; he goes about the rhythms of his schedule with the shadow of the year before in his mind. He goes to Criminological Theory and sees himself heading to the second floor instead of the third. He goes to night practices and sees Kevin playing with his left hand when it should be his right, his right hand when it should be his left. 

The further through November they get, the more sure Andrew is that he’s going to be cut loose soon. He will drift and he will be trampled. He braves the chillier and chillier nights and the heights of the roof to smoke cigarettes with one eye on the horizon and the other replaying too many cruelly crisp memories. It’s a particular form of self-flagellation that only feels more necessary the closer they get to Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Plans and Thanksgiving Dinner and Performing Gratitude. Andrew’s flesh becomes almost unbearably tight. He’s withering. 

Both the memories and the cold are battering him the Monday before break when he hears the creak of the roof door opening behind him. They could oil the hinges, but that would make it easier for them to be surprised. 

Neither he nor Neil is a big fan of surprises. 

“Are you wearing a jacket?” Andrew asks, without bothering to turn around. 

Neil doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. He just shows up at Andrew’s side, for once wearing the fleece-lined jacket Andrew had thrust upon him the first time temperatures dropped below thirty degrees. 

“Are your classes meeting tomorrow?” Neil asks. 

“Just my ten-thirty.” 

And then, nothing Wednesday. And then, Thursday at Abby’s. 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Neil asks. 

“It’s a bit late for a joyride.” 

“No,” Neil says. His voice is serious enough that Andrew turns his head to look at him. “After your class tomorrow, do you want to get out of here? We can flip a coin to decide if we go north or south. Come back Sunday.” 

“And miss dinner?” Andrew asks, lightly mocking. 

“I don’t care about dinner.” 

“It’s your first real Thanksgiving. They are planning to bury you with traditions.” 

Neil turns, props a hip against ledge, puts himself directly in Andrew’s line of sight. “It’s my first Thanksgiving with you. And I’m asking if you want to get out of here.” 

Want is too gentle of a word for it. Andrew longs to get out of here. He yearns to be somewhere completely different. He craves the power to change everything, everything he thinks and feels, the temperature, the ground beneath his feet, the eyes that can see him and remember. 

He says, “Yes.” 

He packs a few days worth of clothes into his suitcase, dumps in a handful of the travel-sized toiletries they keep around for away games, and shoves Neil’s entire lumpy duffel bag into the space left over. Sleep that night is as elusive as it has been for weeks, but this time it’s the starting line itch that keeps him up. The same itch gets him moving in the morning and drags him halfway across campus to his class. It’s an agonizing hour and fifteen minutes for everyone; resentment simmers from the students around him, determination from the professor. 

But then, blissfully, it’s over. Andrew takes three steps out of the classroom door and finds himself somehow back in front of the dorms, his feet light. Neil is already waiting with his back propped against the outside of the building and the suitcase at his feet. Three more steps and Andrew turns the Maserati left at the west entrance to campus and heads to the highway. 

“Which one is south?” Neil asks, a quarter balanced on his knuckle. “Heads or tails?” 

“Heads,” Andrew says, just to be contrary. 

It comes up tails. Neil hums and says, “Best out of three?” 

They go south. Andrew merges onto the interstate, sliding in neatly between a dusty SUV and an old VW. Sliding into fifth gear and flooring it at the first stretch of open road feels like screaming out loud. Andrew drives as far as almost half of a tank of gas will take him; he swings into the least battered gas station at the next exit, just past Forsythe, GA, in one of those dismal little cities where nobody but the highway lives. The digital numbers on the dashboard clock read 3:06. 

The air has a bite. Andrew feels it creeping in under the hem of his jacket when he stretches, eating away at the warmth he’d accumulated sitting in the car. He pulls the cold gas nozzle out of its peeling blue housing and shoves it into the tank as Neil clambers out of his seat and carefully opens the map from the glove box on top of the roof. 

“We could get to Savannah by 5:30 or 6,” Neil says. “And then head south tomorrow. Or we could go west to Mississippi.” 

“Savannah,” Andrew says. It’s a good town for walking. It’s on the coast. The season isn’t right for swimming, but they could write a giant ‘fuck you’ in the sand and Neil could let the water swirl weakly around his feet and peer over the horizon until he ended up all the way back on that beach in California. Andrew would avoid the beach forever, if Neil wanted, but it seems to be something he needs to do sometimes: put his back to the West Coast and go the long way into his memories. 

Neil jogs in and grabs drinks and snacks. It takes long enough that Andrew has finished fueling, slid back into the driver’s seat, and pulled forward to take up two of the faintly marked parking spots in front of the store. Neil has left the map open on the dashboard, so Andrew grabs it and scans through it. He trusts Neil’s ability to read it and give directions—it was Neil, after all, for whom moving quickly and efficiently had been a matter of life or death. When Neil pulls the car door open and drops himself into his seat, he has a thin, white plastic bag in his hand and his cheeks are pink from the cold and wind. He hands over a bottle of purple Gatorade and asks, “Still Savannah?” 

“Yes. Did you get M&Ms?” 

“Peanut,” Neil says, digging through the bag until he finds them. “Want me to drive?” 

Andrew puts the car into reverse as an answer. 

Driving east in the late afternoon is driving into the thickening dusk without the glory of the sun’s last stand. The light is gold until it’s gray and then it’s gone. Andrew takes the exit Neil points out, weaves them through squat strip malls that never turn up in any of the tourism brochures, and pulls into one with a ‘BURGER’ on its lighted sign. 

“What are the chances this is decent?” Andrew asks. 

“50/50,” Neil answers absently. “It’ll either be good or fine.” 

They order quickly; Neil asks for the phonebook and searches it for hotels while they wait for the food to be delivered. If they were still on the interstate, they could just spot a motel from the road, but now they’re in the city. Neil seems to know what he’s doing, though—he has the road map at one hand, the phonebook at the other. The fingers on his left move diligently down the hotel ads; the fingers of the right trace the Savannah map until they find locations. He writes a quick list onto a napkin and starts making calls. 

By the time their burgers arrive, steaming in red plastic baskets that overflow with greasy shoestring fries, they have a reservation at a place their server said was in a decent area of town. Something in Andrew’s chest unclenches at Neil’s, “Thank you,” and the firm press of his thumb to hang up the phone. 

“Is this better?” Neil asks. He doesn’t mean the fries that Andrew is stuffing into his mouth. Andrew had never said anything was _bad_ in the first place, but. He supposes he doesn’t really have to. Not to Neil, at least. 

Andrew leans back against the cracked plastic of the booth and takes stock. The creeping dread that he’d sunk into like quicksand is gone. The hours in the car had been silent in the best way; the smooth buzz of the road beneath his feet and the gentle pulse of the music had loosened something in him. Neil had balled up an extra hoodie under his head and drifted in and out, murmuring soft navigational updates and popping the occasional M&M into Andrew’s mouth. Now, in a claustrophobic burger joint in an unfamiliar town, Andrew feels—not good, exactly, but like he has a layer between himself and the world again. 

“Better,” he agrees. “Beach tonight?” 

Neil nods. “We could light stuff on fire.” 

Andrew reaches across the table and jams a stack of fries into Neil’s mouth. 

That night, they light stuff on fire. Neil grabs a bunch of tourist brochures from the lobby on their way to the beach, stacks of glossy paper with bright graphics and pleas to tour museums, cemeteries, and smuggles them in the pockets of his hoodie. 

They have most of the stretch of beach to themselves, others put off by the twilight and the late autumn temperatures. Neil tucks them up against one of the gentle sand drifts and digs a hole that he fills with torn strips of paper. 

“This is pathetic,” Andrew says. He fishes out his lighter. 

“Sorry it’s not major arson,” Neil says drily. 

“Hardly worth the lighter fluid.” 

At its highest, the flame rises to about three inches. Andrew steals a trolley tour brochure and twists it into a crude rose; he dips the petals into the fire and holds onto it until the sparks creep too close to his fingertips. Neil’s attempt at a rose results in a misshapen snake that almost burns him when it droops limply under the weight of the flame. Andrew supposes Neil has faced too much burning to fear it anymore, but his breath catches when the fire dances millimeters from Neil’s ravaged knuckles. 

Back at the hotel, they kick off their sandy shoes and jeans, peel off their gritty socks, and crawl into the king-sized bed that’s more than generous enough to maintain neutral ground between their battle-ready bodies. It’s two of their beds back at the dorm put together and almost two feet wider than the one at the house in Columbia. When they sleep, they’ll retreat to the edges. For now, though, Andrew hauls Neil towards the middle and presses against his side. Neil’s neck is one of the few un-scarred parts of him, a length of pale, tender skin that sweetly accommodates Andrew’s efforts to hide his entire face. 

The mattress shifts a bit and then the TV clicks on with a tell-tale electrical gasp. 

“MacGyver?” Neil murmurs. 

Andrew walks his fingers beneath the hem of Neil’s shirt. 

“Full House,” Neil says. Each press of his finger on the remote makes a weak, rubbery sound. “Cartoons.” 

“Which?” 

“Teen Titans.” 

“Yes,” Andrew says. “That one.” 

He flattens his hand low on Neil’s stomach, stroking. At Neil’s first sharply indrawn breath, Andrew kisses under the hinge of Neil’s jaw, up and up, behind his ear, down and down and down, licks the hollow at the base of Neil’s throat. 

The bed is huge. Neil’s hands are in Andrew’s hair, gentle, palms cradling Andrew’s fragile skull. The room is all theirs. Neil’s body rises to meet Andrew’s when he rolls on top—the muscles of Neil’s thighs are hard, but the skin is soft, the hair fine under Andrew’s questing palm. No one is going to come looking for them. They’ve never kissed shyly once, not even once. This is no exception; Andrew bites Neil’s bottom lip when he gasps at the weight of Andrew’s hand between his legs. 

The bed is huge. Andrew peels Neil’s shirt off and over his head, yanks off his own and tosses it in the same direction. The room is all theirs. Neil is hard when Andrew pushes his hand back down; Andrew drags his thumb through the slickness at the head. No one is going to come looking for them. 

They’re not going to waste it. 

Neil, post-orgasmic, is boneless and quiet. Andrew isn’t sure where he goes in those moments—it could be anywhere, any time. It works well for them, though, this private retreat, the languid return. 

“What is this show?” Neil murmurs eventually. “Is Raven the long lost Minyard triplet?” 

“Fuck you,” Andrew answers half-heartedly. 

“Okay,” Neil says. “But I’m going to need fifteen minutes.” 

By some fucking miracle, Neil’s eyes stay closed well into mid-morning. Typically he’s up, restless, uneasy about staying in one place too long, even if it’s bed. Maybe especially when it’s bed, when he breaks back through to consciousness and the unsettling truth that he’s been at the mercy of the world around him for hours. Today, though, it’s Andrew who blinks himself awake first. Across the acreage of the mattress, Neil’s body is a careful curve, hunched in on itself other than one arm stretched between them. There’s a wobbly chain of scar tissue looped around his wrist, a topographical record of the blood and pain that was Neil’s birthright. Andrew stretches out his own arm and traces the lines with his fingertips. 

“Good morning,” Neil mumbles, without opening his eyes. Andrew fits his fingertips to Neil’s pulse so that he can feel each beat against his skin. “I had a crazy idea.” 

“All of your ideas are crazy.” 

“Theme parks,” Neil mumbles. The last word breaks and he turns his head enough to smother his yawn into the pillow. “Have you ever been to Disney World?” 

“No.” 

One beat, two, three beats, four, five beats, six. 

“No you haven’t been or no you don’t want to go?” 

“I haven’t been.” 

“Me neither.” 

He’d gone to Disneyland, once, when he lived with Cass. Drake had been away, so it had been—Andrew had felt the oddest mix of giddiness and desperation. He’d needed to wring as much as he could out of it, out of Cass’s motherly attentions, out of the the manic, looping music, out of the gumdrop buildings and the rides that spun you so fast that you had to stumble off of them, dizzy and delighted at your own disoriented clumsiness. He thinks he likes the idea of reclaiming this, too, of leaving more of the _almosts_ and _might have beens_ on the West Coast with Neil’s mother’s bones. 

“Let’s do it,” Andrew says. 

Neil’s eyes finally open. They’re the color of crisp mornings, of shallow, Carribean waters, of the gut-wrenching grief in Andrew’s nightmares. They look right at Andrew, the way they always have. They look right through him. 

“Shut up,” Andrew says. 

“I want to go on rides,” Neil says, as though Andrew hadn’t even spoken. “My mom and I went to a fair once, but I don’t think they were as big as these.” 

Are the rides safer or more dangerous than sitting on the edge of the roof, his feet dangling over the side? Probably safer. He’s not sure his body will follow the logic, but—isn’t that what Andrew’s life is all about now? Trying to feel something? He covers Neil’s beautiful, scarred face with his hand and says, “If you throw up on me I will stab you.” 

Against Andrew’s palm, Neil says, “That would make a bigger mess.” 

“Shut up,” Andrew says again, more sternly this time. 

Andrew puts his foot down and refuses to allow Neil to book them in one of the Disney hotels. Neil seems to think his promises of character breakfasts and towels folded in the shape of animals will sway Andrew, but they don’t. What almost does change his mind is the difficulty in spotting any hotels after the Disney exit. Whatever civilization that sprung up around the park’s sprawling swampland apparently did so fragmentally, with little concern for rhyme or reason, and definitely in the 1970s. Andrew is about ready to snap after the third unsuitable hotel parking lot they pull into. Everything they see is sleazy or overly themed or tucked behind one of the hundreds of cluttered souvenir shops. Eventually, Neil points out an IHOP and jogs in, emerging a few minutes later with directions to an Embassy Suites much closer to the other theme parks than it is to Disney, but which at least belongs in the same dimension as the rest of the world. Andrew can see two Starbucks from the sidewalk outside their hotel, the weather-beaten monuments of an aging water park, and trees, real trees, not the overdeveloped desert they’d gotten lost in earlier. 

They have a late lunch at the restaurant Neil picks out, an outdoorsy variation on Hooters that neither he nor Neil had seen coming. The food is decent and the tits are out, high and proud in scraps of red buffalo check that Andrew catches Neil looking at thoughtfully. 

“No,” Andrew says. 

“No to what?” 

“No to whatever you’re thinking.” 

“I wasn’t,” Neil protests. 

“You were.” 

“I was just thinking—” 

“I said no.” 

“—that I bet there’s an orange version of that.” 

“Stop it.” 

“Come on.” 

“Definitely not.” 

“I can’t remember what they’re called, the half-shirts.” 

“Half-shirts,” Andrew scoffs. “Crop tops.” 

“You’d look good in an orange crop top.” 

“What about the shorts?” 

Neil’s affirmative nod is bright-eyed and exaggeratedly reverent. 

“Not even if you paid me,” Andrew says. 

“I’m taking you to Disney.” 

“If you like the idea so much, you wear them.” 

“Maybe I will,” Neil says. His face says, ‘ _watch me_.’ 

“You wear them and we’ll talk.” 

_“‘Talk,’”_ Neil parrots, amused. 

“Chat,” Andrew clarifies. “Gab. Dialogue. Chew the fat.” 

“Yep,” Neil says easily. “No sex at all.” 

“None,” Andrew agrees. 

“You know who would wear it?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Matt.” 

Andrew pictures Boyd, huge, broad, none of his distinctly sculpted abs concealed by the bright fabric. “He would,” Andrew agrees ruefully. 

Their food comes—Andrew’s fish tacos, Neil’s towering sandwich, packed with turkey, avocado, and other green shit. Neil adds mustard, because he is revolting. Andrew is revolted. Andrew would fight to the death over a single hair from Neil’s head. And yet, it hadn’t been him who’d done anything to the death for the other. That had been Neil. Twice, he’d held Andrew as more precious than his own life. And he hadn’t asked for anything in return. Thinking about it makes an awful feeling swell in Andrew—some mix of anger and grief, desperate and grasping. How dare Neil. How fucking dare he. 

Andrew takes a too aggressive bite of his taco; the filling spills out the back end and cascades over the back of his hand. One chunk of onion lodges at the edge of his armband and sticks, just cool enough to feel entirely alien. 

It isn’t worth heading to one of the theme parks this late in the afternoon. None of the brochures screaming at them from the hotel lobby appeal. Neil seems intrigued by the murder mystery dinner theater that promises a fine prime rib, but that is a red flag if Andrew’s ever seen one. Instead, they wander until the creeping characterless-ness of the streets defeats them and head back to the hotel. It has an indoor pool, but they bypass it in favor of the forsaken one outside; it’s still technically open, but the nights are rushing towards winter much faster than the days, so there’s no one there to protest when Andrew sparks his lighter in the protective harbor of his hand and touches the flame to the end of a cigarette. 

Andrew’s lounge chair has him upright and curled over his knees; Neil flops onto the flatter one next to him with an effortless grace. His head is at the foot of it, his feet braced against the gentle incline of the back. The smoke Andrew inhales warms his lungs and not much else, so he wiggles his free hand into the press of skin and fabric beneath Neil’s bent knee. 

It’s Thanksgiving eve. They’re supposed to be in South Carolina, probably attending some kind of nostalgic fall festival with ciders and pumpkins and other, more obscene gourds. Andrew can feel the walls trying to close in around him even this far south. Tomorrow, everyone is going to congregate at Abby’s. Drinks will be served. Appetizers will be passed around too early, then a scanter selection later when dinner is inevitably running late. If he closes his eyes, Andrew can see himself seated at the table, Neil pressed close at one elbow, Nicky at the other. The room is too warm—it’s impossible to set a heater to the right temperature when you’re adding a dozen people’s body heat into the equation. Silverware clinks against plates and glasses. There’s a round of earnestly awkward giving of thanks. Wymack is poised to make a speech. 

Andrew opens his eyes. There’s no house, no narrowing tunnel of expectation, no memories of disastrous family dinners. There’s just an empty pool, strewn with fallen leaves, and Neil, watching Andrew’s face. 

“Staring,” Andrew accuses. 

Neil, a shameless repeat offender, shrugs. “Let’s eat the opposite of Thanksgiving food tomorrow.” 

“You would think foods have opposites.” 

“Mexican,” Neil says easily. “German. Japanese. Moroccan.” 

“If you think being a show-off polyglot is going to impress me, you’re wrong.” 

“Hmm,” Neil hums. “Do I need to impress you?” 

The answer is no. Of course it’s no. “Yes.” 

Neil just smiles. Andrew watches his thick, stubby lashes blend into one dark line as his eyes fall closed. Andrew inhales smoke and feels it rip through his throat, fire and ash making space in the flesh and blood and bones of his body. He knows there are no hollow places inside of him, not really. Every inch of his skin is packed with the things that support the illusion of being a person: blood pumping, organs seething, joints hinging and pivoting. He knows that there are a thousand miraculous, taken-for-granted processes happening simultaneously so that he can lift his hand to his mouth, seal his lips around the cigarette, and suck poison into all of that machinery. Thinking about himself without skin, without the thin layer of cells that makes him human instead of a horror, suits Andrew better than the image he sees in the mirror. Without the fantasy of being a whole thing, nothing that happens to your body feels quite as personal. Without the shell, everything is already viscera. 

Andrew inhales again, feels the smoke burn, watches the skin that hides what his hand really is as it draws itself into goosebumps to protest the dropping temperatures. The fingers he has wedged between the back of Neil’s thigh and calf are warm, given heat and haven generously, easily by this impossible man who turns trinkets into treasures with the strength of his devotion. Andrew taps the ash off of the stub of his cigarette and slides his warm fingers lower, cupping his hand around the curve of muscle until his fingertips ride the seam of Neil’s jeans. He dips lower yet; Neil’s legs fall open a little, just enough for Andrew’s pinky to brush the sensitive ridge of flesh that always hugs Neil’s left leg. The world around them is quiet and still enough that Andrew feels Neil’s almost imperceptible shift, the slightest swelling against his knuckle. 

Neil cracks one eye open, questioning. The color still takes Andrew’s breath away when he sees it, so much more intense than any quarter of the midday sky he’s ever tried to compare it to. Andrew crushes the remnants of his cigarette against the pavers and says, “Upstairs.” 

They navigate the journey to their room as individuals, self-contained and quiet. There are no longing looks or indiscreet touches. They don’t make out against the shuddering walls of the lift. There’s no clumsy struggle with the keycard as they writhe, desperate, against the door to the room. Andrew’s desire for Neil is urgent, but not uncontrollable. Inside, they’re not coy—they never have been. There’s never been any time to dance around it. They strip and they pull down the covers and they both say yes. They kiss. They touch. Andrew works Neil open with careful fingers, with his mouth wrapped around the head of Neil’s dick. 

There’s nothing inherently special in the way Andrew touches Neil. His body is just a body, even if it does sometimes feel like the most real thing in the world. The most alive. The only special thing about the tight press of Neil’s ass around his fingers is how badly Andrew wants to feel the trembling of his thighs when the stretch slides from function into pleasure. 

Neil’s thighs tremble. Andrew shifts upwards and kisses the taste of precome into Neil’s mouth and any pretense he has of this being nothing but muscles and chemicals and nerves collapses under the tenderness of the hands that comb through his hair. 

Sex is messy and more mundane than magical. Your toes get cold, sometimes. A knee lands a little too close when you have only a pliable mattress for leverage. The glistening in movies is all oil—real sweat trickles down your neck or the back of your knee or your stomach, lighting up baffled nerve endings that grope for a cause and too often decide on tickling. None of that matters, not really. Andrew supposes he’s not even doing a very good job convincing himself that this is all mechanical. 

Upright, places traded, Andrew shoves pillows behind his back and drops onto them. He’s miscalculated. His head bounces off the headboard with a dull thud that he feels in his teeth. Neil, straddling Andrew’s lap, laughs, but his hand cups protectively around Andrew’s skull almost instantly, fingers gently stroking to dissipate the ache. Andrew allows himself to be pulled more upright by that hand, allows Neil to shove another pillow behind him, surrenders the weight of his head to Neil’s sure grip and allows himself to be guided back down to something softer. 

No, there’s nothing mechanical about trust. Whatever the delicate thing inside him that blossoms under Neil’s touch is, Andrew knows you’d never find it in the flesh. No matter how hard you were willing to look. 

Neil is fast, has always been fast, sinks onto Andrew’s cock and rides him until they’re both breathless—Neil from the exertion, Andrew from the sight of him. Fucking is still new to them but Neil, as ever, throws his body behind his instincts. He braces his hands against Andrew’s thighs and moves, shameless and gasping, slipping again and again through Andrew’s loose hold on his hips. Andrew spins dizzily too close to orgasm too soon, desperately wraps his arms around Neil’s waist and pulls him closer until they’re pressed together so tightly that they have to drop from fifth gear to second. He tips his forehead to Neil’s chest and pants against scarred skin in time with the steady slide of Neil’s body against his own. They should tip in one direction or the other—back with Neil onto the bed, back with Andrew onto the pillows—but they hold each other in balance. Ballast. They always do. 

The inner workings of Disney in the weak light of the next morning are as labyrinthine as its outskirts. Andrew drives, preses his feet to the pedals, shifts lanes at the angling of Neil’s hand, takes the exits Neil points to, rides the elevated death train of the future, and steps into a tidy, southern town that’s just opening its doors to the rest of the world. 

Andrew says, “I will have nightmares about this.” 

“Me, too,” Neil says. “Let’s get a map.” 

The trash cans match the buildings. Something about all of the perfection makes Andrew want to destroy it, but then a toddler screams and flings its sippy cup ten feet away from its stroller and he feels better. 

There is a roller coaster that roars through the pitch black. Andrew can’t see the height, but he knows it’s there, struggles for a while to keep himself oriented, then gives in and closes his eyes and lets the rush of air and the screams of the others on the ride stream over and around him. 

There’s a racetrack. Andrew slides into the little car, fastening his harness with fingers that buzz with the engine’s shuddering desire to go and go fast. He doesn’t give any more thought to the self-satisfied men his age than he does to the reckless sixteen-year-olds as he slips between and past them, daring the gas pedal to press through the floor. 

There is a creepy island that requires a faux-ramshackle ferry to reach. Neil’s itch to explore is as strong as Andrew’s to conquer. He trots along, speed controlled for Andrew’s sake but never completely repressible. There are dark caves and tunnels and nooks and crannies within, child-sized hidey holes that they swing into and kiss in until someone comes rampaging past and Andrew has to let go of Neil’s ass, has to step back so Neil can push off the wall. 

There’s a giant log they sit in while it maneuvers them through a surreal backwoods hellscape of singing, hillbilly animatronic animals and attempted murder. It’s more of an unnerving show than it is a ride, but neither Neil nor Andrew think to duck before a wall of water hits them in the face. Neil’s hair is soaked to a dark red that falls in points over his forehead and drips into his eyes. Andrew gives him the most disapproving look he can muster, but feels something move inside him when Neil just laughs and bumps their shoulders together. He decides it’s hunger. 

Lunch is a long affair in a pocket of calm within the constant stream of bodies through the park’s streets. They climb into another futuristic elevated death train and ride it over and over in a loop through Tomorrowland during the heightened frenzy of the mid-afternoon, passing in and out of the dark, through other buildings, over the weary, waiting families below. Neil spends the entirety of one loop dozing with his head on Andrew’s shoulder. 

Andrew expected to have more than sweat and fatigue to wash off of himself after a day spent around families either happy or trying to convince themselves they were. His feet ache, but his heart doesn’t, so he turns the shower as hot as he can stand it and nods for Neil to join him. He cups his hands around Neil’s face and kisses him beneath the spray of water, restless and wanting but not knowing what to do about it. 

“What do you want?” Neil murmurs against his mouth. 

“I don’t know,” Andrew has to admit. “I just want to feel good.” 

“Where?” Neil asks. 

“Anywhere. Everywhere. Nothing inside.” 

He goes when Neil gently turns him, braces his hands against the wall to either side of the shower controls, and drops his head forward when Neil’s mouth starts sliding down his spine. His knees don’t buckle when Neil spreads his ass apart and licks, but his toes curl and his right hand slides dangerously to the side. For an hour, two, maybe three, all there is is the cold tiles beneath his hands, the relentless pummeling of the water, and Neil’s tongue, hot and soft and wet and working Andrew until his cock screams at him for attention and noises he can’t control echo around them. Neil’s hand snakes up between Andrew’s thighs and fists his cock, stroking crudely and tightly over skin swollen almost to bursting and Andrew, for the first time in his life, cries out at the intensity of feeling as he comes, rocking desperately against Neil’s filthy mouth and into the unflinching grip of his hand. 

They sleep and wake on opposite sides of the same bed, Andrew needing the distance as much as he needs the closeness. He feels pulled thin and restless, dreading another day at Disney and a day spent in bed in equal measure. He answers Neil’s questions with grunts and stingy syllables and rolls over to go back to sleep when Neil pulls on sweatpants and grabs the car keys. There’s more light creeping in through the thick hotel curtains when the door swings open again, admitting Neil and the wafting scent of coffee and grease. 

“There’s a zoo,” Neil says as he hands Andrew a gigantic coffee and a breakfast sandwich. “A nature park. A giraffe ranch. An aquarium, but that would probably be more crowded.” 

“What is a giraffe ranch?” Andrew asks. 

Allowing Neil to tend to his psyche feels as vulnerable, as intimate, as allowing him to rim Andrew out of his head last night. He turns the music up to discourage conversation as they travel from the hectic crush of tourism to the sleepy, moss-heavy wilds of central Florida, where they transfer to a safari-style Jeep that Andrew drives because driving occurs in a pocket universe where he can be in control of everything. He thinks, if he could control his mind better, he wouldn’t have to be taken to the fucking zoo like a child, but then Neil strokes a giraffe’s chin with a gentle, scarred hand and a look of unabashed wonder on his face and Andrew remembers that it isn’t always raining, no matter how dark of a cloud he may be. 

The sun is high in the sky and Andrew is coated in a fresh layer of dust and a few layers of exotic animal spit when he props his back against a tree that overlooks the fading autumn green of the ranch’s fields. A group of eight people atop camels wobble awkwardly by, laughing like admitting they’re bad at this will somehow keep them on top of their mounts. Andrew feels Neil’s shoulder press into his own as he drops close and hands over a bottle of water. 

“I would have killed you,” Andrew says. 

“I know.” 

“You thought about it.” 

“Of course I thought about it. You on a camel. What’s not to like?” 

“Your imminent murder.” 

“Eh. My murder is always imminent. At least this way I’d get to see you up there before I died.” 

Andrew’s not in the mood to banter with Neil about the ways people have hurt him, could hurt him, lurk somewhere dreaming about hurting him. Not today. He drops his head back against the tree and guides the bottle of water to his mouth by instinct and feel. 

“What do you want to get for dinner?” Neil asks. 

“I don’t care.” 

“Tapas good?” 

“How old are you?” Andrew asks. 

“Legally? Biologically? I’m not really sure.” 

“You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” 

“I know,” Neil says softly. He leans a little more heavily into Andrew’s side. 

A nap isn’t on the unspoken itinerary for the day, but Neil takes one anyway. Three steps into their hotel room he kicks off his shoes, climbs out of his jeans, pulls his hoodie over his head, and tucks himself under the covers with a yawn. 

“Josten,” Andrew says. 

“Minyard.” 

It’s mid-afternoon. Too early for dinner. Too late to hit another destination. Andrew thinks about his body, how it feels, what he wants. Bed sounds good, lying still and warm. He doesn’t want to be held, not like this, not with a thread plucked loose and threatening to unravel him completely. But there are other things than sleep. Other things than being held. 

He unlaces his boots, takes off his jacket, leaves socks and jeans and shirts on. Grabbing the pillows from the second bed allows him to build a little wedge for himself, propping him up enough to see the TV. He says, “Neil,” and holds an arm out when Neil looks at him. He doesn’t want to be held. He wants to do the holding. 

Neil scoots closer, drapes an arm over Andrew’s ribs, pillows his head on Andrew’s chest, buries another yawn against Andrew’s shirt. 

Andrew puts on the Food Network. Neil will be able to hear his heartbeat, so he focuses on breathing steadily, keeping his pulse even. He’d meant what he said, earlier. Most people would tell him that Neil is the best thing that had happened to him, had brought a lightness and a connection and an intimacy and a trust back to his life that had been ground to dust before he’d even had a chance to get a look at them. Neil is smart (and so fucking stupid) and brave (and such a fucking martyr) and gorgeous and cares about Andrew so much that Andrew doesn’t even try denying it. He’d been better off before, better off not knowing any of this was possible, infinitely better off when he hadn’t felt it, wouldn’t mourn it if he lost it, wouldn’t be crushed if it slipped away. That’s what usually happens. People slip away from each other. 

The ever-present, unconscious tension in Neil’s body goes slack once he surrenders to sleep. His head sags against Andrew’s shoulder, his draped arm loose and heavy. Andrew pulls him a little closer and buries his face in Neil’s thick, messy hair. There are some weaknesses Andrew is okay with Neil seeing, and some he isn’t. This is one of the latter; Neil would happily allow Andrew to clutch him, would clutch back. And Andrew knows, of course he knows, that Neil knows how raw his feelings are—Neil forms his body around them and shields them the way Andrew shields his lighter from the wind. What does Andrew shield Neil from? What fucking purpose does he serve for Neil? Andrew hadn’t been able to keep him safe from Riko, from his father, from Ichirou. Andrew had promised to have his back, but every time it was exposed, he hadn’t been there. 

Top Chef is on. Andrew focuses on the controlled chaos and not on this man who had needed so much and refused to take more from Andrew than understanding and touch and a couple of keys. 

The tapas place is dim and eclectic. The live music features enthusiastic maraca playing. A bellydancer weaves through the tables. It’s a Friday night. People are out and happy, on dates or with friends, laughing in the low way that people always do when they feel like they’re doing something classy. Their server announces a happy hour deal in which they can get eight separate dishes for less than twenty bucks. Neil orders all of them and then some. Potato croquettes. Crispy brussels sprouts. Churros. 

Neil only ever spends money for Andrew’s sake. It’s never meant anything to Neil other than safety and escape; he has as much as he’ll ever get of one now, and no need of the other. 

They eat everything. Andrew feels stuffed full when they get back to the hotel room, testing the limits of his usually bottomless stomach. Neil eyes the bed like he’s going to fall face-first onto it and not move for another twelve hours. 

“Nope,” Andrew says. 

Neil gives him a calculating look. He can calculate all he fucking wants, but he’s not getting into that bed in jeans and layers. 

“Change,” Andrew orders. “Your clothes smell like hummus.” 

“Your clothes smell like hummus, too.” 

“Yes. But I don’t have to be told to put on different ones.” 

Their bedtime routine is almost domestic. Maybe all the way domestic. They brush teeth side-by-side, plug in their phones, pull on comfortable, unsexy clothes, and prop up in bed like a middle-aged couple about to watch prime time television. 

No one had been able to take Andrew’s sexuality from him. Desire. Release. They’d tried—and maybe they'd always haunt him, ghosts with unfinished business—but they hadn’t won. It is harder for him to trust, to be touched, but it isn’t impossible. They hadn’t robbed him of it. But they hadn’t robbed him of _no_ , either. He could peel Neil out of his clothes and pin his hands above his head and take him apart slowly. He could roll Neil over and fuck him again. They could do anything. But they don’t have to. Andrew had reclaimed sex, but he’d also found this: sprawling on a bed with Neil in sweatpants, pretending to be disgusted by Neil’s running commentary on the second _Harry Potter_ movie, patiently answering his questions, watching Neil’s face more than the movie itself. Neil has Andrew’s hand in his lap. He’s absently playing with it. Each soft stroke against Andrew’s palm and the sensitive undersides of his fingers sends cascades of feeling through Andrew’s body. It’s skin again—back on him, holding him together, making him touchable. The bed is huge. The room is theirs. No one is going to come looking for them. Neil’s sweatshirt is faded and battered. Andrew’s eyelids are heavy. 

It’s not a waste. 


End file.
